Copy and paste is one of the most-used functions in Microsoft Word. In Word 2010, though,there’s a function called the Spike that might be even more useful for moving text and pictures around a document.
The Spike is an extended clipboard feature of Word 2010. It allows you to remove two or more items from different parts of a document and reinsert them as a group in a new location in the document.
This can be very handy for editing large documents, piecing together research projects, arranging agendas, compiling reports and more.
Reckless Racing 2 is released Thursday 2nd February for for iPhone, iPad and Android devices. The highly-anticipated sequel to one of the most popular mobile racing games cranks the action up a gear in what is a deeper and more ‘grown up’ experience.
This week we’ve been testing a preview release of Reckless Racing 2, and have loved every second of it. It boasts the same top-down Micro Machines-style gameplay as the original, only with lots more game modes, improved multiplayer and lots of upgradeable items.
Reckless Racing 2 tones down the hillbilly theme of the original, and the presentation is much more polished. In fact, it feels like developer Polarbit has spent a lot of time playing Gran Turismo during development of Reckless Racing 2!
KMPlayer is one of the most powerful video players for Windows. The multimedia application has a huge range of settings that help you customize your entertainment experience.
One neat trick with KMPlayer is to watch multiple videos at the same time with picture-in-picture viewing. Rather than just having different player windows open, this feature embeds smaller videos over the top of a large one.
So if you don’t have time to watch four movies in one night, just watch them all at the same time using KMPlayer!
Watch the video tutorial or follow the steps below to enable picture-in-picture viewing in KMPlayer.
1. Download KMPlayer from Softonic and install it on your PC. Open the player and right click on the main window. Choose Options, then Preferences.
2. In the General Settings section of the Preferences menus, deselect Disallow MultipleInstances.
3. Load up your first video. This will become the one that appears in the background.
4. Pause the movie and right click on it. Go the Screen Controls option, choose On Top, then Never.
5. Open another video in a new window. Right click on this one and go to Screen Controls. Choose On Top, then Always.
6. Right-click on the video window and choose Skins, then Default Control (Auto Hide).
7. Repeat steps 5 and 6 for all of the videos you want to load.
8. Now maximize the first video to full screen and position all the other videos in front of it, resizing the windows as necessary.
9. You’re now ready to start enjoying the benefits of picture-in-picture viewing with KMPlayer!
Need to take a screenshot of a video? One of the simplest ways to do it is with UMPlayer, an excellent media player that’s a worthy alternative to the popular VLC Player.
Whether you have a movie review web site and want to take some stills of a new film, or you just want a shot of your favorite movie to set as your desktop background, UMPlayer makes it dead simple.
Install UMPlayer
First, download UMPlayer from Softonic and install it on your PC. Launch the application and load a movie by dragging the file into the main interface or choose File from the Open menu.
Capture a screenshot
Go to the point of the movie you want to capture and press pause to freeze it. Now go to the Video menu, and you’ll find two screenshot options here. Select Screenshot to take a grab of what’s currently on screen, or choose Start/stop taking screenshots and UMPlayer will keep taking shots of the screen as the movie plays. Then choose this option again (or hit Shift + D) to stop the capture process.
Change output options
To find out where your screenshots have been saved go to the Options menu and select Preferences. On the General tab of the General options (which should load as the default menu) you’ll see a section called Screenshots. Here, you can change the destination folder of the saved screenshots, and enable/disable UMPlayer’s screenshot functionality.
Smartphone users can now listen to free music through Grooveshark on their device thanks to the launch of a new mobile web app from the music streaming service.
Grooveshark’s native apps were removed from both the Apple App Store and Android Market last year due to record label complaints. However, Grooveshark has now launched an HTML5-based music streaming service – effectively bypassing the app store owners since approval is not needed.
The Grooveshark web app can be accessed through many mobile web browsers, supporting iOS, Android, BlackBerry and HP devices. To use the service, simply visit html5.grooveshark.com from your mobile and start listening.
You can use the Grooveshark web app to search for and listen to a particular song or artist, or hear playlists generated by genre through the Stations section. The Popular tab lists the most searched-for tracks of the moment. The Grooveshark web app has a compact and easy-to-operate user interface, although it lacks the range of features and functionality that the short-lived native Grooveshark app had.
Think back to the last time you used Facebook at someone else's house or an internet café. Now ask yourself, did you remember to sign out? Are you sure? Here's how to log out of Facebook remotely.
If you forgot to log out of Facebook while on a different computer to the one you normally use, the consequences can be catastrophic. If your account is logged in at your friends' house then 'you' suddenly might start posting some strange updates about yourself indicting you for various embarrassing things you haven’t actually done. Worse still, if it was on a public computer, all of your personal details, photos and messages are accessible to complete strangers. Still sure you signed out?
Luckily for you, there's an easy way to check wherever you are signed into Facebook – and close active sessions remotely. Even if you're 99% certain you've signed out it’s worth checking by following the process below – you might regret it if not!
1. Account settings
Click on the little down-facing arrow in the top-right of your Facebook page and choose Account Settings.
2. Security
Now click on the Security option in the left-hand menu.
3. Active sessions
Click the Edit button that appears next to Active Sessions, which you'll find at the bottom of the Security settings window. Here you can see the current session you're logged in on (which should be the computer you’re using).
Crucially, you can also see information about all other sessions where you'e currently still logged in. Click the End Activity button to close down a session and prevent access to your account from that machine.
Ever tried to watch AVI movies on your iPhone? Then you’ve probably already worked out that the Apple device sadly doesn’t support playback of AVI video.
Thankfully, there is a way around this issue and there are at least two ways to play AVI files on an iPhone, iPod touch or iPad. Here I’ll explain how it’s done, first by converting your video file and prepping it for your iOS device, or alternatively by using an app called Air Video to stream video files from your computer to your iPhone.
Do this…
Use a conversion tool to convert AVI movies to iPhone format. I recommend Format Factory because it’s free and it has built-in output settings for converting to particular mobile devices, including the iPhone.
It seems fitting that the first OnSoftware post of 2012 should pay homage to some of the great articles we published last year.
There was much to talk about in the world of software and apps in 2011, and testament to this is that we published more blog articles last year than any other in our history. If you don’t have time to go back and read them all (there’s a staggering 581 of them!) then at least go back and revisit our ten most popular posts of last year in terms of visits.
The list makes for an interesting overview of what was on the minds of computer users last year (upgrading to Windows 7/Mac OS X Lion, getting onto Google +, social media privacy - and Minecraft!) Take a trip back down memory lane by checking out the posts:
Last week, we revealed our top iOS apps of 2011. Now it’s time to turn our attention to games, as we round-up the best titles of the year for all mobile platforms.
We’ve played so many great mobile games this year that this blog post could have easily been a top 100. Luckily, though, we were able to get the list down to the top ten mobile games of 2011:
Tiny Tower was our favorite of all the freemium, ‘build ‘em up’-style games this year. Your objective is to build a huge tower complete with apartments, shops, offices and more. Tiny Tower’s cute pixel art graphics and laid back elevator music make it a really charming strategy game. What’s more, its Game Center integration allows you to find other ‘Bitizens’ to challenge online.
A new web service has been launched that turns your Facebook profile into a book. Fonicle will take all your Facebook status updates, photos and comments and turn them into a publication.
The service has been created by the brains behind Twournal, which lets users print their Twitter timelines as a book. Fonicle users can get a PDF version of their Facebook book for free, or order a printed and bound copy either in color or black and white.
Fonicles can be customized with personalized covers and messages, making them an ideal Holiday gift for Facebook addicts!
Grand Theft Auto 3 has been released today for mobile devices, promising iOS and Android users all the fun, action-packed gameplay of the controversial original game. Its release is designed to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the original launch.
As you can see from the trailer, GTA 3 for mobile is a very faithful conversion of the original for the small screen. You play as Claude, a career criminal who must work his way up the crime ladder of Liberty City in order to get revenge on his ex-girlfriend who betrayed him during a heist.
Full of great 3D graphics, fast cars, fun storylines, and brazen violence, Grand Theft Auto 3 is well worth the five bucks it costs from the app store. Find out more by reading our review of GTA 3 for iOS and Android.
2011 has been another great year for iOS apps. Despite the fact that Apple’s mobile platform fell behind Android in overall popularity this year, innovation in iOS development is better than ever.
The Apple operating system is still where cutting edge applications are born, and this year’s launch of iOS 5 and the iPhone 4S device have fueled app developer’s imaginations even more. Here’s our pick of the best iPhone and iPad apps of 2011, based on what impressed us out of the hundreds of new apps we tested this year.
For me, Garageband is the most accomplished iOS app of all time. It allows you to create impressive musical compositions without any technical know-how, through an interface that’s effortless to navigate. The software's Smart Instruments, including piano, bass, guitar and drums, serve to help you create music that sounds like it's been played by a pro.
First released alongside the iPad 2 in March as one of the flagship apps for the tablet, this music-making app has since found its way onto the iPhone, too.
As with Garageband, iMovie is another piece of Mac software that makes the transition from desktop to handheld really well. The app makes smart use of the multi-touch gestures to allow you to add videos, photos, music and sound effects, and piece them together. You can choose to add footage from your camera roll, or capture video directly through iMovie. The results can then be shared via YouTube.
The built-in desktop themes in Windows 7 are quite attractive, but they are very generic and lack originality.
If you really want your Windows 7 computer to stand out from the rest then you can download new Windows 7 themes to add personality to your desktop. Downloadable themes normally include wallpapers, icons, sounds, and personalized cursors.
Here are ten popular Windows 7 themes on Softonic that will transform your desktop into a thing of beauty.
Angry Birds is one of the most successful video games of the last few years. In it, you need to catapult birds at the constructions in order to kill their arch enemies, the noisy pigs.
This Angry Birds theme pays homage to the popular mobile game, and is the perfect option for those millions who are hooked on the game. The theme includes 21 wallpapers, five icons, and three personalized sound files.
Looking for high tech gift ideas this Holiday Season? There are some really cool iOS toys out now that will impress anyone with an iPhone or an iPad.
Here are my top six iOS gift ideas for the holidays. All of them consist of an app, plus a toy or gadget that interacts with the application in some way. They all serve to highlight how far augmented reality applications have come in the last year.
Fans of the Cars movies will love these innovative iPad toys from Disney. Put the toy cars on your tablet and move them around and you’ll interact with the virtual world that appears in the app. The Cars characters are the first in Disney’s new line of AppMates, which could revolutionize the way we play games on our devices. Price: toys from $12.99, app free
Wondering why your HTC Android phone keeps running out of memory? One of the answers could be that it’s crammed full of apps. By default the Android Market stores all of your apps on your device’s internal memory, rather than your larger SD card.
The most sensible thing to do is to tell Android to automatically save install applications to your SD card to free up internal memory. However, the process of doing this isn’t straightforward and there is no setting for it within Android’s menu system.
Don’t worry though because with a bit of patience and the help of the Android SDK it can be done. Start by downloading the following tools:
10 Cool Chrome Extensions and Apps
How to rotate video with VLC
How to set up Ultrasurf with Firefox
Desktop alternatives to Megaupload
Copy and paste is one of the most-used functions in Microsoft Word. In Word 2010, though, there’s a function called the Spike that might be even more useful for moving text and pictures around a document.
